I'm John Batcher speaking with my colleague Jonathan Shanzer, the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

And I spend the week in conversation with Jonathan's troops of the FD, the think tank.

And they give me lots of information that I then get to convey to

Jonathan as if I knew it all the time. Well, I didn't because Syria is turning into a game of knaves.

Al-Sharahara is a former, I'm told to say this, former Al-Qaeda member who is now the

self-named president of Syria. However, what he seems to say this, former al-Qaeda member who is now the self-named president of Syria.

However, what he seems to be president of is a confederation of the cutthroats of the whole region.

We have Islamic jihad in the neighborhood of Damascus.

We have Hamas wandering around.

We have worse wandering around near the southern border where the Israelis have parked.

At the same time, we have the Druze forming a national militia to guard the Sueda province,

which was the scene of a massacre several weeks past, a massacre that appeared to be vouchsafed by Alshara, unclear.

The Alawites are on the coast, they're well-armed,

and then, of course, our allies in the northeast of the country, the Kurds.

Jonathan, what I'm describing is a checkerboard of well-armed people.

And this was said to be something that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia favor once upon a time.

They can't still favor all these gangs together.

They don't, but they're still trying to save Syria from itself.

And so we're watching the United

States. We've already removed sanctions against this regime, despite the fact that it is

led by al-Qaeda or reformed al-Qaeda, depending on your perspective. And I think it was probably

too soon to do this, but the administration would like to try to empower pragmatists.

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